9/19: Onto Kyrgyzstan's Capital of Bishkek: Literally & Emotionally Moving Statues!

After spending several enjoyable days in and around Karakol, located near the southeastern edge of Issyk-Kul Lake, we took a marshrutka for what we expected would be a seven or eight hour ride back to the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek, via the north shore of the world's second-largest alpine lake. After our three day horse trek, we had traveled, also by marshrutka, along the southern edge of the 170 kilometer long lake so we were happy to see the lake from a different perspective. If you look closely, you can see the Tien Shan mountain range in the background.  

I read that more than one hundred hotel complexes dotted the northern shore but we could only see a few of them from the highway for the first couple of hours. 

Then we had superb views of the mountains that reminded us of home back in Colorado.

The monument at the pit stop did not look like home, though!

Back on the modern, divided highway, in the very comfortable full-size Mercedes Benz Sprinter van a little while later, it was a scream when all of a sudden there were about twenty to thirty horses galloping down the highway!

There could so easily have been a terrible accident with impatient drivers trying to get around the horses who seemed spooked at being on the highway and hearing car and truck horns beeping incessantly to try and have them move, but luckily everyone seemed to keep their wits about them from what we saw. Local drivers must be accustomed to seeing animals on the road as there had been a flock of sheep on the highway just before the horses made their appearance.

One of the towns we drove through on the north shore was Cholpon-Ata where the 2018 World Nomad Games had taken place at the beginning of the month. We hadn't heard a thing about them, unfortunately, until we met the three young men from Great Britain and the Netherlands while staying at the same yurt complex as we did on the first night of the horse trek. By that time, the games, which consisted of ethnic sports practiced in Central Asia, were over. It would have been so neat to have been there but we knew we just couldn't do everything and be everywhere.

The $5 per person ride from Karakol ended up taking just five hours so we had more time than we had expected to explore Bishkek that afternoon. We were delayed, though, for a while after finding out our flight to Spain was cancelled in late October. That meant having to make arrangements to leave a day early from Astana, Kazakhstan which then caused a ripple effect with our hotel reservations there and in Barcelona! 

Finally, we set out and discover the city known for most of the 20th century as Frunze, after the Bolshevik military campaigner and associate of Lenin who was born in the city. The city was barely a 100 years old but it was built on the site of a much older Sogdian settlement that was a staging post on one of the lesser branches of the Silk Road.

The White House, a seven story marble building constructed in 1985, was the seat of Kyrgyzstan's government and included the president's office.

The iron railings held plaques honoring those who died in the violence during the country's regime change in April of 2010.

Just beyond the White House was a particularly powerful memorial in black and white marble that symbolized good over evil with three grim-faced men cast in bronze pushing the black stone - darkness or evil - away from the white - goodness and light. Unveiled in April 2012, the monument depicted the heroes of the uprising two years earlier when about 90 protesters died, and scores were hurt while driving Kurmanbek Bakiyev from power. 

I was so impressed when this young woman so thoughtfully stopped to ask us if we knew the story behind the monument and if we had any questions about it or the events that had transpired during that turbulent time in her country's history. Unfortunately, I can't think that would happen in the US. 

 Kyrgyzstan has had a troubled history, and their problems did not stop once they got their freedom from the USSR. Since 'independence,' they have had two revolutions and the Monument to Those Who Died for Freedom reflected that. 

Just behind the freedom monument was Friendship Monument which was inaugurated in 1974 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Kyrgyz people joining the Russian Empire. The trees around the monument were planted by key Soviet dignitaries such as Breshnev.

Say what you will about the Soviets, they did build some mighty impressive monuments throughout their former republics!

Next along Chui Prospect, Bishkek's main street, was the State History Museum fronted by the enormous equestrian statue of Manas, a Kyrgyz national hero, astride his horse, with sword in hand. During the Soviet era, a statue of Lenin occupied this spot. 

Just west of the monument, two immaculately dressed  guards stood at attention in front of an immense flagpole but it was too dark to get a decent photo of the flagpole. We passed by this guard post four times while in Bishkek before being able to finally witness the changing of the guard in the huge square where the museum and statue were! Look for more on that in a future post.

Opposite the museum, the statue and the guards was Ala-Too Square, the heart of the city. Formerly known as Lenin Square until independence in 1991, the square was named after the mountains that overlook the city. It was where most official celebrations take place and was also the setting for the violent protests and shootings that accompanied the regime change in 2010.

Do you remember my writing about the crosshatch design at the top of the inside of yurts also represented in the Kyrgyz national flag? Here's the design in the flag. You'll also see the flagpole in an upcoming post.

The signs all around the square highlighted the World Nomad Games I mentioned earlier. Boy, did they look like exciting!

Above the huge square were rows upon rows of lights that were the perfect resting spots for birds, it seemed! The overhead lights in the shape and color of the Kyrgyz flag could only be detected during a nighttime visit. 

It would be so much fun to come back another time at night to see the trees and lights above the square all lit up. 

After only wandering down the main street for about a mile, we came across the second movie theater which was more than we'd seen in the last month!

We soon noticed people selling some sort of beverages from these mobile stands all over Bishkek. I figured they couldn't be alcoholic as school kids stopped to buy the drinks.

The beverages didn't entice me but the ice cream stands did! I hate to think of all the ice cream cones I have eaten this trip but, at about twenty five cents a pop and not ever eating lunch, I figured I could definitely afford the cost and hopefully the calories. I, however, didn't go so far as having one like the girl treated herself to in the second picture although it did look pretty divine!

Steven and I have toured most of the bourbon distilleries on the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky but these ready-made bourbon and coke drinks for a couple of bucks in a supermarket in Bishkek were new to us. Are these available in the US and Canada, do you know? 

When looking for a place to eat a bit earlier, we never thought to Google where the nearest Nathan's Coney Island hot dog place was, that's for sure!

Karakol also had had a similar tiered planter with pots at every level. 

Walking back to our hotel on the opposite side of the street we came across Revolution Square with two more massive monuments. According to the English paper, The Telegraph, the Freedom Monument, built in 1999, was erected in Bishkek's main square in 2004 to replace one of the founders of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin. Dubbed Kyrgyzstan's "Statue of Liberty," moving it to the main square was supposed to symbolize a new start for the Central Asian state which gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But since then, Kyrgyzstan has had to cope with two revolutions and ethnic violence in the south that killed at least 400 people.

Some Kyrgyz have said that rather than representing liberty, the statue of a winged woman holding a tunduk, the criss-crossed top of a traditional Kyrgyz yurt, was instead cursed. When it was moved here to Revolution Square, further down Chui Prospect, the Manas monument was placed in the main square. That meant there were three statues or monuments in that square in just seven years!

The second monument in Revolution Square was Martyrs to the Revolution Monument. Its central figure was Urkuya Saliyeva, a young socialist organizer from southern Kyrgyzstan who was murdered by reactionary locals. She is said to be surrounded by figures who represented the 'awakening proletariat' or those who gave their lives for a better future.

Steven and I enjoyed watching a group of people in their late teens or early twenties playing volleyball but without benefit of a net in the square. Some of them made some great plays.

I googled a list of statues in Bishkek but wasn't able to figure out who this debonair man was. Update on October 11th: Since Steven could read Cyrillic, he informed me after reading the post the mysterious figure on the statue was Suimenkol Chokmorov, a Kyrgyz filmmaker who taught painting and composition. My brother, Andrew, also asked his Bulgarian friend who the statue was of and confirmed what Steven had found out. He added, though, that Chokmorov, also an actor, was in a 1975 movie he liked called Derzu Uzala. Kudos to both Steven and Andrew for doing that research!

We passed quite a few women selling popcorn along Chui Prospect. 

Yet another 3D movie theater complex on Chui!

Back near the White House was another large green space called Dubovy or Oak Park which began as a grove of oak saplings in 1890. The statue of Kurmanjan Datka, stood in the same place that was once occupied by the Freedom Monument and then statues of Lenin and Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka secret police! Datka was a heroine and stateswoman from southern Kyrgyzstan who acquiesced under duress to the annexation of the country to Russia.

I don't think we have ever seen so many oak trees in any one park before. I count my lucky stars that we didn't get beaned by any of the constantly falling acorns as we would have had a major headache!

The highlight of the park for me was the outdoor sculpture garden with statues from cities from all over the former Soviet Union.

Dubovy Park also had a monument in a desolated area of the park to Marx and Engels who were depicted sitting next to each other deep in conversation. Their names had been removed which "indicated some sort of compromise with the past, in which out of favor ideologues may be depicted as long as they are not named."

The final case in the game of the musical statues (as opposed to chairs!) was the relocated Lenin Statue in a decidedly low key spot behind the State Historic Museum. When the statue used to hold a commanding position on Chui Prospect in front of the museum facing Ala-Too Square, Lenin was seen as pointing south toward the Ala-Too peaks. Now, Lenin's back was toward the museum and the statue showed him gesturing in the general direction of the American University, whether in righteous fury or in conciliation, no one can be certain! I read that Bishkek is now the only remaining Central Asian capital to have a Lenin statue. Unlike neighboring countries, Lenin was demoted to a less prominent position and a far lower plinth rather than having been destroyed outright.  

Next post: Discovering more of the Kyrgyz capital.

Posted on October 4th, 2018, from Bukhara, Uzbekistan.